The 37-year-old slugger, who signed a minor league deal with the Braves earlier this year, wanted to convey his gratitude for the 10 years he spent with the Toronto Blue Jays, so he wrote a thank you letter to the city, organization and fans in The Players' Tribune.

We teamed up for 10 straight seasons - and it's crazy how they flew by. But man, at the same time……. I also want you to know: Those 10 seasons meant everything to me. Decades in life really don't get any sweeter.

And before I take the field tonight, wearing another team's jersey - it just feels like there's one thing left that I have to do. One thing that I still want to get off my chest.

Bautista joined the Blue Jays in 2008 after having already played for four other teams in Major League Baseball. But the native of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, made his name in the big leagues in Toronto. In 2010, his third season with the Blue Jays, Bautista exploded for 54 home runs and 124 RBI as he garnered his first of six straight All-Star nods.

His emergence as a star helped propel the Blue Jays to a resurgence, with the team reaching the ALCS in 2015 and 2016.

"That run where we finally turned ourselves into a winner, and got Toronto Baseball back to where it belongs," Bautista wrote. "To me, as of right now, those will go down as the best years of my baseball life: where all the hard work finally came together, and suddenly we were all pulling on the same rope, in just the right way, and for a moment, it was like - baseball. It had this higher purpose."

Bautista left Toronto after a 2017 season in which he hit 23 homers but only batted .203. The Blue Jays declined his $17 million option in the offseason, setting up his move to Atlanta.